If they sell up now, or when the rumours about private tenants getting a right to buy at a discount, then they would sell to any ordinary buyer.

If they wait until legislation is actually passed saying the tenents have a right to buy, then there will be a flood of evictions and a flood of houses on the market, all sitting empty, and a housing market crash.

I don't see it ending well. no private landlord is going to sit tight just hoping his tenant doesn't exercise their right to buy his house at a substantial discount.

I bought my first house using right to buy. After 3 years I got a 33% discount and this increased each year by 1% if you continued to live there. The only issue was the house was priced what the housing executive valued it at so was slightly higher than what it would have been on the open market. Had to live in it for 5 years before I sold it or I would have had to pay back the discount. Without that first step I wouldnt have been able to build my own for quite some time.

If, to keep the sums simple, private landlords had to give a 50% discounts to their tenants after 3 years renting, then the rent on a £100,000 house with a 6% return would be somewhere around £1900/month.

This is the crux of the matter. We are paying money straight into the pockets of BTL landlords, via housing benefit. Of course we blame the 'welfare scroungers', who are simply passing the money on, we don't blame the opportunistic landlords.

The system rewards people who happened to have some capital and be in the right place at the right time. That is not an enterprising economy.

No we aren't. We are paying money straight into the pockets of tenants in order for them to pay for housing services.

Just as we pay money straight into the pockets of benefit receivers to buy food from the Coop and swimming lessons from the sports centre.

Perhaps we should target the Coop and the Sports Centre...

I never understand the "forced purchase from Private LLs" argument. Unlike HA property, they are not subsidised. I can only see the argument if the same people want to argue that people with spare bedrooms should have tenants forcibly billeted on them.

... a flood of houses on the market, all sitting empty, and a housing market crash.

I don't see it ending well. no private landlord is going to sit tight just hoping his tenant doesn't exercise their right to buy his house at a substantial discount.

To play devil's advocate, such a rebalancing of the market would be welcomed by many younger prospective buyers today. There is an argument that current house prices are completely unrealistic.

SteamyTea, on 17 November 2015 - 05:40 PM, said:

If, to keep the sums simple, private landlords had to give a 50% discounts to their tenants after 3 years renting, then the rent on a £100,000 house with a 6% return would be somewhere around £1900/month.

No, the rent would not go up, the house price would go down.

ferdinand, on 17 November 2015 - 05:55 PM, said:

No we aren't. We are paying money straight into the pockets of tenants in order for them to pay for housing services.

Just as we pay money straight into the pockets of benefit receivers to buy food from the Coop and swimming lessons from the sports centre.

Perhaps we should target the Coop and the Sports Centre...

I never understand the "forced purchase from Private LLs" argument. Unlike HA property, they are not subsidised. I can only see the argument if the same people want to argue that people with spare bedrooms should have tenants forcibly billeted on them.

Ferdinand

The difference is that the market in house rents is essentially arbitrary- it is simply supply and demand. Housing benefit goes up, rents will go up. Housing benefit goes down, landlords will have to take less. Not the same market forces that apply to a supermarket.

If I can try to sum up my viewpoint:Our property prices are artifically high, and private rental is a poverty trap into which nobody would willingly place themselves. We have a generation of young people unable to get on the ladder, who are paying the mortgages of those luckier than them. I have limited sympathy for buy-to-let investors. This country has a real problem whereby houses are seen primarily as investments. We should be prioritising the right for people to have a roof over their head, rather than the rights of opportunistic property investors.

To play devil's advocate, such a rebalancing of the market would be welcomed by many younger prospective buyers today. There is an argument that current house prices are completely unrealistic.

while that may be true in some areas (SE England) I don't believe it is true everywhere.

Take our new build. we are building a 3 bedroom house, and I expect when it's all finished it will have cost us about £250K with most of that being building work, materials and services (land prices are lower here)

That will probably be about it's market value when complete.

So to put it another way, even by doing a LOT of the work myself, I will end up with a house that is only just worth what it cost me.

On that basis, you might argue prices here are too low. If I had just paid a builder for a complete house on my plot, I have absolutely no doubt the house would have cost more than it's market value.

It's no wonder building firms have to cut every corner that they can to make any money out of building houses.

If you look at the bottom end of the housing market here, you can buy an old terraced house for a lot less money that it would ever be possible to build one for.

I agree with you there, except the supermarket statement. They too take asset value into account via their profit and loss/balance sheets.
Part of the reason that Tesco have taken such a hit in the last couple of years. And Morrisons is going to sink. I doubt if the new comers are bothering to trade in fixed assets.

Take our new build. we are building a 3 bedroom house, and I expect when it's all finished it will have cost us about £250K with most of that being building work, materials and services (land prices are lower here)

We know land is expensive. Maybe the building materials that are also overpriced

There is a complex (although not overly-complicated) situation here and it's still evolving which, if I have anything to do with it, will ultimately involve self-destruction, but that really has more to do with the system than the elected people who populate it!

The demographic is changing and to some degree reflects what's happening in Parliament, although it will never go as far as that has gone.

Put simply, whilst younger people are standing for election (and winning) they are hardly ever seen at county hall because they work and are still getting on with busy lives, the only ones amongst them who can make the time to attend briefings and meetings and make site visits tend to be what I call "professional politicians", they've come through the ranks of the party activists and actually have - in consequence - restricted experience of "real life".

The bulk of elected membership therefore tends to comprise the retired; the professionally employed who employ people to be doing their business for them back in the office (or farm - a lot of farmers and landowners); the unemployed (guess in what party); wives of professional men (including farmers); most of whom have reached a stage in their life when they can afford to spare the time representing others; etc.

The key word there is "afford" if you're a working person. You couldn't support a mortgage if you spent the time you should be spending representing others in anything like an effective way.

The "value" of a unitary councillor was put at £22,000 by the independent body that sets remuneration levels for public bodies. The council itself decided that as the "public service element" could be judged to be 50% of a councillor's time the final "salary" was set at £11,000, plus any direct expenses, plus allowances for senior posts.

The result? Well, it's why it's so difficult to find young working people with mortgages standing for election, especially when government-imposed austerity cuts are making us so unpopular.

You have plenty of time on your hands, why not get in there and start at least trying to change things? It's how I got involved. Friends got so tired of me batting on about "those frigging clowns" that they challenged me to put my opinions where my mouth was. Ended up on the parish council and then the county council. Guess what? I am actually making a difference - a little one, but hey, it's a start.

Which ultimately comes down to restricted supply, which comes down to the high cost of land, in turn caused by the Planning system.
Allow anyone to build houses wherever they want (subject to Building Regs) and housing would become affordable overnight.

A lovely idea, but missing the real issue. Yes, supply and demand is the driver. BUT, if you increased supply what will happen. What will happen is, the UK will look more attractive still, more people will come and prices go up. The root cause of the problem is that the UK is reasonably prosperous, and, it would seem, an attractive place to live. As long as this remains the case, house prices, rented or purchased will remain high. Anyone that thinks more houses will solve the problem is delusional.

tony51, on 17 November 2015 - 07:57 AM, said:

What seems to have been ignored is the situation of private tenants. There is an inherent injustice in the system if tenants of HAs have a right to buy their property, but private tenants don't.

Whats actually bonkers here is that my tenants pay me more every month than a mortgage would actually cost. But they cant get a mortgage thanks to the new rules because we have to protect them from themselves. They can clearly afford it, they have never missed a payment n 4 ears. But they dont meet the new criteria so have no choice but to rent. Madness!

RandAbuild, on 17 November 2015 - 10:24 AM, said:

This is the craziest, back of a fag packet, proposal to come forward for a long time. It’s supposed to work like this:

Give tenants of housing associations the right to buy (it was a manifesto commitment, so they have to do it)

Tenants get up to £103,900 discount in London, £77,900 elsewhere, after just 3 years

If your house is valued at say £225k, after three years the Government (ie us) give you the full discount to buy it. Quite a good return, one might say, especially as you’ve only paid about 17k rent, and you've had your repairs done for free during this time

The money to pay for this comes from selling expensive Council housing when it falls vacant.

In most London Boroughs and many areas of the south east, virtually all housing will qualify. So it will reduce the rented stock available to people on the waiting list. In parts of Cambridge, they predict it will wipe out all Council housing (perhaps the Government's intention)

The money will also pay for a one-to-one replacement by the housing association that sells to the Right to Buy purchaser (it isn’t used to repay debt)

The record for doing this isn’t good - over the past 10 years, the rate of replacement has been 9 sales for 1 replacement

The economics of this simply don't work, as there's not enough income from sales to pay for it all

Over 40% of properties sold under RTB are now owned by private landlords, who mostly let the to people on Housing Benefit at a much higher rent than the housing association used to charge. So we pay for it twice over.

So as Joiner says, it’s a disaster for LAs and pretty bad for housing associations, who will be required to sell of their rented housing (what they were set up to do) and replace it with shared ownership or discounted market housing.

I’ve nothing against people owning their own home, but why should they be given huge handouts to help them? Where is the help for others who don’t happen to be lucky enough to live in a HA property?

Probably, because of my comments above, there are fw other options that will work?

ProDave, on 17 November 2015 - 01:09 PM, said:

If they sell up now, or when the rumours about private tenants getting a right to buy at a discount, then they would sell to any ordinary buyer.

If they wait until legislation is actually passed saying the tenants have a right to buy, then there will be a flood of evictions and a flood of houses on the market, all sitting empty, and a housing market crash.

I don't see it ending well. no private landlord is going to sit tight just hoping his tenant doesn't exercise their right to buy his house at a substantial discount.

Correct. Just issue a section 21 the day after legislation is passed and sell house.

Crofter, on 17 November 2015 - 06:36 PM, said:

To play devil's advocate, such a rebalancing of the market would be welcomed by many younger prospective buyers today. There is an argument that current house prices are completely unrealistic.

If I can try to sum up my viewpoint:Our property prices are artificially high, and private rental is a poverty trap into which nobody would willingly place themselves. We have a generation of young people unable to get on the ladder, who are paying the mortgages of those luckier than them. I have limited sympathy for buy-to-let investors. This country has a real problem whereby houses are seen primarily as investments. We should be prioritising the right for people to have a roof over their head, rather than the rights of opportunistic property investors.

Your first comment is wrong. Supply and demand dictates the price. But he the demand side cant be managed.

Whilst you may have limited sympathy for me, i do need to provide for my retirement. My pension that i paid into for 20 years (railway) will give me £1700.00 a year thanks to a certain Mr Brown. So what to do? A wise man said to me dont invest in anything you dont understand. My take is dont invest in anything that can / will disappear. So that means physical assets. So houses and cars it is. Always interested to see what other options are, but i trust no one else to look after my money. My pension is clear proof of that!

"A lovely idea, but missing the real issue. Yes, supply and demand is the driver. BUT, if you increased supply what will happen. What will happen is, the UK will look more attractive still, more people will come and prices go up. The root cause of the problem is that the UK is reasonably prosperous, and, it would seem, an attractive place to live. As long as this remains the case, house prices, rented r purchased will remain high. Anyone that thinks more houses will solve the problem is delusional."

Not sure that is right, places that have very few planning/supply restrictions tend to have lower property prices.
A Bangladeshi slum is pretty cheap, an Oklahoma suburb similar, a Mayfair apartment is not cheap, nor is a Penzance semi.
They are all different prices, but it really depends on the local economy.